City Diary: Downton not the finest entertainment for Tesco chief

Tesco UK managing director Chris Bush tuned into Downton Abbey for the first time on Sunday to check out his multi-million-pound sponsorship of ITV’s hit costume drama. Aviva and P&O had backed the first three series, which Mr Bush had apparently failed to see.

Tesco’s investment in the Grantham family is part of a major re-launch of the Finest brand and the sponsorship will continue throughout the fourth series. But it seems safe to say that Mr Bush won’t be making an appointment to view every Sunday evening.

“I didn’t enjoy Downton one bit,” he told reporters at the press launch for the new Finest range yesterday morning. “But I did like the ads.”

Diary can only assume that, like many viewers, Mr Bush felt the latest crime against poor old Anna, the world’s unluckiest maid, was a shock plot too far.

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It wasn’t long ago that investors couldn’t get enough of potash. The fertiliser was a hot commodity but concern about oversupply and the collapse of an informal cartel of eastern European producers has depressed prices and dampened down enthusiasm.

Aim-listed African Potash stepped up with some apparently good news yesterday, however. It used the stock exchange’s Regulatory News Service to deliver the news that its chief executive, Ed Marlow, would be appearing on a CNBC discussion programme. Strangely, the market appeared unmoved.

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The BBC is regularly criticised for its empire building online, having expanded its website to compete with virtually every section of a media industry that is trying to adapt to the digital era. The latest extension of brand Beeb sees it take on the successful business news 'live blogs’ run by several newspapers, including this one.

“We want to provide the BBC’s audiences with the chance to enjoy the best of all our output without having to hunt around iPlayer and the different programme websites,” explains Robert McKenzie, business editor of BBC Online.

But while others run their live blogs all day, enabling readers to pick up the news as markets open around the world, the BBC will only operate between 6am and 10am.

“It may run for longer on days when there is big economic or business news,” says Mr McKenzie.

Is the short day a sign of the BBC responding to concern about its online expansion in commercial media? Perhaps the “Delivering Quality First” cutbacks that have chipped away at its total of a mere 8,000 journalists have imposed limited working hours? Licence-fee-paying business readers surely have a right to know.

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Cast your mind back two years, when it emerged that super-spinner Roland Rudd was organising private dinners for Ed Miliband to improve his links to business.

The identity of the attendees remains undisclosed but you might expect, given that the evenings were organised under the auspices of Mr Rudd’s role as chairman of RLM Finsbury, that some of his biggest corporate clients might have been on the guest list. And, given the intense scrutiny of the influence of money on politics, it’s surely reasonable to wonder how Labour policy might since have developed in relation to the interest of Mr Rudd’s big players.

The watchdogs need not be unleashed. For, among RLM Finsbury’s top clients are Centrica, who Mr Miliband intends to slap with a statutory price cap, and DMGT, the publisher of the Daily Mail, currently also battling the Labour leader over criticism of his socialist father’s views.

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Sir Howard Davies’ Airports Commission squeezed hacks, airport operators, airline bosses, lobbyists and campaigners into a tiny room at The Exchange building on London Bridge Street yesterday to hear its latest thinking on the seemingly never-ending capacity debate.

“We are doing a kind of impersonation of a full terminal at Heathrow just to get people in the mood for dealing with the problems,” Sir Howard joked following complaints from the audience. “It’s like being on a Ryanair flight,” moaned one BBC hack.